System Speed Test

EDITORS NOTE 05/15/2009: Benchmark Reviews has re-tested the Super Talent UltraDrive ME with the latest v1370 firmware, which includes TRIM support, and the resulting performance was generally identical to the previous firmware. Please remember that TRIM is a Windows 7 supported feature, and does not improve performance on Windows XP or Vista Operating Systems.

I doubt that when DOS was put to rest, Vladimir Afanasiev ever thought he would see his System Speed Test software used again in professional reviews. This program offers comprehensive system information, but it also has a powerful benchmarking tool for memory, processor, and disks. In terms of disk performance, it measures interface and physical transfer rates, seek and access times at the hardware level, and it does so without delay or interference from Operating System software or running processes. This is why Benchmark Reviews will continue to use this test: it polls its results directly from the hardware without the need for Windows!

System Speed Test does not require a partition to be present for testing, so all of our Random Access Time benchmarks are completed prior to drive formatting. To detect the Random Access Time, each device runs the full test routine a total of five times. The highest and lowest scores were ignored, and the remainder was averaged. This would be prove pointless however, because the access time benchmark for every single SSD recorded identical test results between runs.

At the slower end of our SSD Response Time chart is the original SATA Silicon Power SP064GBSSD25SV10, OCZ Core Series, Crucial's CT32GBFAB0, and the Super Talent MasterDrive MX finishing out the list. In reality you couldn't begin to perceive these subtle differences, and MLC or SLC construction has a lot to do with Random Access Time. It is understandable then, that the newer SSD products do not maintain the lightning fast response time that much more expensive SLC products do. Still, the slowest SSD product (0.51ms) is 14x more responsive than the fastest desktop hard drive.

It's also worth keeping in mind that Hard Disk Drive alternatives are much slower to react. Even the very best of the desktop hard drive products, Western Digital's VelociRaptor 150GB WD1500HLFS, could produce 7.15ms at its best. The Western Digital Raptor took 8.53ms to respond, followed by 12.99ms for the Seagate 7200.11, and 15.39ms for the 7200 RPM Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 notebook drive. The worst performer was the standard 5400 RPM notebook drive (Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HTS541640J9SA00), which recorded a painfully slow 17.41ms Random Access Time.